[Avodah] on orthopraxy

[Kenneth Miller]

R Saul Newman wrote to Areivim:
> question--if one became convinced that tora was
> NOT mishamayim [r'l], would the proper response to
> become orthopraxic, or to drop everything?

(Perhaps I'm reading too much into the word "proper". I think that under all circumstances, the *proper* response is always to do mitzvos, and that RSN probably meant to ask about the *likely* response.)

I think this question is phrased to begin at a midpoint, and it cannot be answered well unless we go to its beginning. In other words, if we set aside a hypothetical future event, where are we holding *now*?

Are we talking about someone who is currently convinced that Torah *IS* mishamayim, or one who is actively unsure, or one who doesn't really think about the question? The reason I'm making these distinctions is because each of these people could respond to RSN's scenario in very different ways.

Personally, my own attraction to Torah has been very technical and logical. I started with my own formulation of what I later learned to be called "Pascal's Wager", and over several years (still ongoing, actually) my emunah and practice became more and more solid.

But all along, I have been aware of those whose attraction to Torah was of a totally different nature than my own. For example, those who were attracted by purely social or emotional causes. No doubt about it: a shabbaton can be a powerful experience, and there are many who choose mitzvos over hedonism because they perceive it as beautiful or as fun, and NOT necessarily as Truth.

On the one hand, I've tended to view such people as weak in their faith, but it is very wrong to paint with such a broad brush. On the one hand, such people *might* be more prone to drop their shmiras hamitzvos when their social environment changes. But on the other hand, they might also be more prone to develop into the sort of Erev Shabbos Jew" that R Micha has described; certainly more prone to it than a technical logician such as myself who finds Simchas Torah to be an emotional challenge.

So too, in R' Saul Newman's hypothetical: I suspect that those who are attracted to Torah for emotional reasons will be much less likely to abandon Torah simply because they've been convinced that it's not mishamayim, because that wasn't part of their foundation to begin with. And so they're more likely to remain orthoprax, while the one who had been convinced of Torah's Truth and then flip-flopped would probably drop everything.

Akiva Miller
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